31 March 1939

Yesterday Tomorrow

1933: GERMANY: Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick, using the Enabling Act, dissolve the parliaments of all states except Prussia.

1936: GERMANY: Germany offers a 19-point peace plan for political problems to be followed by conferences on disarmament and economic problems. The main points were: Assurance on troop movement in the Rhineland, the 25-year nonaggression pacts, an air pact, agreement for cultural disarmament, national plebiscites to ratify the agreement, German willingness to reenter the League of Nations, negotiations on colonial equality of rights, and separation of the Covenant from the Versailles treaty.

March 31st, 1939 (FRIDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain addresses Parliament, declaring support of Poland with military assistance in case any action was threatened by Germany. He also speaks for France. The news of Chamberlain's guarantee throws Hitler into a rage.

The first production Miles Master advanced trainer come off the production line at Miles Aircraft of Woodley, Reading, Berkshire. (22)

GERMANY: Germany and Spain conclude a Treaty of Friendship.

POLAND: Britain and France sign an agreement with Poland guaranteeing its borders against aggression. These "unconditional" guarantees only pertain to Poland's western border with Germany, not its frontiers with the Soviet Union. (Jack McKillop and Michael Ballard)

31 March 1940

March 31st, 1940 (SUNDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Bomber Command: Reconnaissance of Germany.

RAF Fighter Command: Luftwaffe aircraft attacked the Orkneys, Shetland and shipping in the North Sea. aircraft driven off by fighters; 1 German aircraft severely damaged. No damage on land.

Ark Royal and Glorious sail from Scapa Flow destined for the Mediterranean Fleet for exercises.

BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC:

U-boats start withdrawing from the Western Approaches in preparation for the German invasion of Norway.

Losses. 2 ships of 11,000 tons.

1 U-boat.

Merchant Shipping War.

Losses. 43 ships of 96,000 tons.

ITALY: Mussolini warns King Victor Emmanuel III that Italy will join the war.

GERMANY: The German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis (ex SS Goldenfels), known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 16 and to the Royal Navy as Raider-C, sets off on a mission to catch and sink Allied merchant ships. Atlantis had been a merchant ship, but was converted to a commerce raider with six 5.9-inch (15 cm) guns, one 75 mm gun on the bow, and two twin-37 mm and four 20 mm automatic cannons all of which were hidden, mostly behind pivotable false deck structures. A phony crane and deckhouse on the aft section hid four of the 5.9-inch guns. The ship also had two waterline torpedo tubes, a 92 mine compartment, and two Heinkel He-114B seaplanes for reconnaissance. The Atlantis donned various disguises in order to integrate itself into any shipping milieu inconspicuously. Commanded by Kapitän zur See Bernhard Rogge, the Atlantis roamed the Atlantic and Indian oceans. She sank a total of 22 merchant ships (146,000 tons in all) and proved a terror to the British Royal Navy.

FINLAND: In Soviet Union there is founded Socialist Karelo-Finnish Soviet Republic. Its territories include those recently conquered from Finland. The new republic's leader is none else but Otto Wille Kuusinen, the Finnish emigrant communist and the recent Prime and Foreign Minister of the so-called Finnish People's Government. In Finland this move is seen as yet another evidence that Stalin prepares to annex the rest of Finland at the first opportunity.

31 March 1941

March 31st, 1941 (MONDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Fighter Command: For the month 43 German combat aircraft are shot down at night - 21 by radar guided anti-aircraft and 22 by night interceptor planes equipped with airborne radar.

RAF Bomber Command: 2 Group: Blenheims of 82 Squadron attack six ships off Le Havre, leaving two 3,000-ton tankers ablaze.

Eight aircraft of 21 Sqn. attack ships off the Dutch Frisians. One destroyer is damaged. They then attack troops, gun emplacements and guns along the Dutch coast. One aircraft is lost.

The new 'King George V' class battleship HMS Prince of Wales is completed.

Civilian casualties of the Blitz this month are 4,259 people killed (including 598 children) and 5,557 injured.

FRANCE: The RAF sent 109 bombers to attack the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the port of Brest last night; no hits were scored.

GERMANY: Daily Key note from the Reich Press Chief:

We must wait for reports of Italian losses in the sea battle in the Aegean Sea [before issuing news about it]. If further reports arrive concerning the British aircraft carrier that we crippled, we must not mention [in press reports] that the carrier in question was once again the 'Ark Royal'

The final individual returns from the 1939 census are distributed to the local registration offices for cross checking against the Volkskartei. Much of the information is out of date.

SWITZERLAND: Private Coe of the British Army Dental Corps arrives on neutral soil. The first escapee from a German PoW camp.

GREECE: Athens: The British Air Force in Greece reported:

On Sunday British bombers made successful raids on Elbasan (Albania) and its environs. Enemy fighter planes tried to stop our aircraft, but gave up the battle after one enemy fighter was brought to crash. Our armed reconnaissance flights in the Tepeleni area of Albania also went off successfully. All British aircraft returned to base.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Cruiser HMS Bonaventure with a Mediterranean Fleet cruiser force escorts a convoy from Greece to Egypt and is is torpedoed and sunk by Italian submarine Ambra 90 miles south of Crete at 33 20N 26 35E. There are 310 survivors. (Alex Gordon)(108)

Submarine HMS Rorqual, off northeast Sicily, torpedoes and sinks submarine 'Capponi'.

NORTH AFRICA:50 tanks of the Afrika Korps strike at the Mersa El Brega gap between the desert and the coast just east of El Agheila.

The forward positions of 13 Corps were occupied by scattered elements of the 2nd Armoured Division, which were soon passed through. The British seemed convinced that Rommel was attacking in overwhelming strength, although the Germans had concentrated all their tanks into one force, which consisted of the 5th Light, with the 5th Panzer Regiment, with Panzer IIIs and IVs as its strongest element, and two Italian divisions, the Ariete and the Brescia.

Wavell and Neame, informed by Ultra of the state of Rommel's forces had assumed he would wait until all the Afrika Korps had arrived.

Tripoli, LIBYA: The German 15th Panzer Division lands.

GREENLAND: USCGC Cayuga (CGC-54), arrives at Godthaab with the U.S. South Greenland Survey Expedition, composed of State, Treasury, War, and Navy Department representatives. The expedition's mission is to locate sites for airfields, seaplane bases, radio and meteorological stations and aids to navigation in Danish Greenland.

BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC:

Losses: 63 ships of 365,000 tons.

5 German U-boats - including three of the U-boat arm's most experienced Commanders.

Merchant Shipping War in Europe.

Motor gun-boats are entering servive to combat E-boat attacks on East Coast convoys. Improved MTBs are also being built to attack German coastal shipping. This marks the first step in the building up of Coastal Forces.

Losses: 73 ships of 153,000 tons.

MERCHANT SHIPPING WAR: Losses- 2 ships of 12,000 tons.

31 March 1942

March 31st, 1942 (TUESDAY)

GERMANY: During the day, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 11 Hampdens and six Wellingtons on a cloud cover raids to Germany; six aircraft find targets to bomb.
During the night of the 31st/1 April, four RAF Bomber Command Wellingtons, with selected crews using Gee, are dispatched to Essen but only one bombs; a second aircraft bombs Hamborn.

U.S.S.R.: The Soviet Navy records 1 submarine loss during the month that is not listed by day:

Shch-210 Black Sea Fleet off Shabler Cape (sunk by German aircraft off Crimea) (Mike Yared)

INDIA: The Congress Party demands immediate independence.

CEYLON: The British Eastern Fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Sir James Somerville consisting of the aircraft carriers HMS Formidable, Hermes and Indomitable; five old battleships; six British and two Dutch cruisers; and 15 destroyers, sail from Colombo after being warned of the approach of a Japanese fleet. The Japanese force under Vice Admiral KONDO Nobutake consists of the battleships HIJMS Haruna, Hiei, Kirishima and Kongo; the aircraft carriers HIJMS Akagai, Hiryu, Shokaku, Soryu and Zuikaku; heavy cruisers HIJMS Chikuma and Tone; light cruiser HIJMS Abukuma; and nine destroyers.

BURMA: After a fierce ten-day battle, Japan takes Toungoo from the Chinese expeditionary force. The Chinese 200th Division makes contact with the Chinese 22d Division north of Toungoo and withdraws north of Pyinmana as a reserve. With the loss of Toungoo, the road to Mawchi is left undefended and the Japanese, during the next few days, overrun the small Chinese garrison at Mawchi and then continue east, forcing elements of the Chinese Temporary 55th Division (T-55th) of the Chinese 6th Army back to Bawlake.

NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: Four RAAF Hudsons of Nos. 2 and 13 Squadrons operating from Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, bomb Penfui Airfield on Dutch West Timor Island. The Australians destroy at least six aircraft on the ground and four flying boats in the harbor.

NEW GUINEA: The 8th Bombardment Squadron (Light) transfers from Charters Towers, Queensland, Australia to Port Moresby, New Guinea, with six A-24 Dauntlesses; they fly their first mission tomorrow.

NEW ZEALAND: New Zealand now has 61,368 servicemen overseas, 52,712 of them in the Army. Home Guard strength is 100,000.

TERRITORY OF HAWAII: Major General F. L. Martin, Commanding General Hawaiian Air Force, and Rear Admiral PNL Bellinger, Commander Naval Base defence Air Force, prepare a joint estimate covering Joint Army and Navy air action in the event of sudden hostile action against Oahu or Fleet Units in the Hawaiian area. Part III “Possible enemy action” states that “a declaration of war might be preceded by: (1) a surprise submarine attack on-ships in the operating area, (2) a surprise attack on Oahu including ships and installations in Pearl Harbor, or (3) a combination of these two.” The conclusion is that “it appears that the most likely and dangerous form of attack on Oahu would be an air attack. It is believed that at present such an attack would most likely be launched from one or more carriers which would probably approach inside of 300 miles (483 kilometres).”

U.S.A.: In Washington, Major General Carl Spaatz suggests that the now "task-less HQ 8th Air Force" be shipped to the U.K. to assume operational control of the units assigned to Army Air Forces in Britain (AAFIB).

ATLANTIC OCEAN: German submarine U-754 sinks two U.S. merchant ships off the U.S. East Coast near Norfolk, Virginia. (1) Unarmed tug Menominee and the barges that she is towing, Allegheny, Barnegat, and Ontario, are shelled by U-754 about 53 miles northeast of Virginia Beach, Virginia; the tug and barges Allegheny and Barnegat sink but barge Ontario, with its dunnage cargo, remains afloat and provides a life preserver for the three men who had been on board each barge. Only two of the 18-man tug boat crew and the nine men on the barges survive. (2) Later in the day, the sub torpedoes an unarmed tanker as the ship, en route to Norfolk, Virginia, waits to embark a pilot. One crewman dies in the initial explosion.
An unarmed U.S. tanker en route to Caripito, Venezuela from Buenos Aires, Argentina, is shelled, torpedoed, and sunk by Italian submarine Pietro Calvi about 513 miles east northeast of Cayenne, French Guiana; 2 crewmen on the tanker are lost.

31 March 1943

March 31st, 1943 (WEDNESDAY)

NETHERLANDS: The shipyards at Rotterdam are bombed by the US 8th Air Force. Seventy eight B-17s and 24 B-24s were dispatched but because of clouds, only 33 B-17s of the 303d and 305th Bombardment Groups (Heavy) bombed the target at 1225 hours local. (Jack McKillop and Michael Ballard)

GERMANY: Major-General Peltz of the Luftwaffe is appointed Angriffsführer England, in charge of bombing raids against England.

Rastenburg: Hitler meets Bulgaria's King Boris III for consultations.

With the whole country now geared up for "total war", the armaments industry accounts for a massive 70% of Germany's national product. Since 1939, production of arms and equipment has quadrupled. Overall industrial production has risen by only 12%.

The National Socialist government says that recovery from the appalling losses of the Wehrmacht in the USSR will be made on a rising tide of new weaponry, although male armaments workers are being sent to replace their dead countrymen at the front. All businesses that are not essential to the war effort have been closed.

Agricultural production has fallen severely as farmhands are siphoned off to the war industries and fertilizers are increasingly hard to come by. Even production of the much-praised potato has dropped, and it is now illegal to feed spuds to livestock.

But the economy would be in a far worse state if it were not for the National Socialists' systematic exploitation of the occupied countries' resources and labour. Nearly one-fifth of the food consumed in Germany comes from abroad.

POLAND: Auschwitz-Birkenau: With the opening of the second of four spanking-new crematoria here today, the camp's capacity to process human beings into ashes has taken another step forward. The extermination of Jews and Gypsies on such a scale brings a new problem: how to dispose of their belongings?

In order to maintain the illusion that they are to be resettled, deportees are allowed to take a bundle of clothes or a small suitcase of belongings each. When they arrive, and undergo the selection that sends most of them straight to the gas chamber, they must drop everything.

A special corner of the camp, called Canada, is full of privileged prisoners whose task is to sort the goods into piles. In the middle of the yard are two enormous mountains, one of blankets, and one of suitcases and knapsacks. Prisoners sort clothing into piles; the yellow stars will be taken off, the bloodstains cleaned up and the old clothes shipped to the Reich for distribution to the German needy.

To the right, hundreds of prams; to the left, thousands of pots and pans. All around are huts filled to the rafters with shaving brushes, spectacles, dentures, corsets, wigs, false limbs, shoes, handkerchiefs; the pitiful residue of lives cruelly terminated in a cloud of poison gas. The children's toys, bottles, dummies and tiny clothes bear mute testimony to the slaughter of the innocents.

Money and valuables - mainly watches, jewellery, and currency - are set aside and sent to the Reichsbank. This includes the few diamonds squeezed out of toothpaste tubes where hopeful deportees hid them, and gold teeth and fillings wrenched from the mouths of corpses before cremation.

U.S.S.R.: Soviet troops occupy Anastasyevsk, north of Novorossiisk.

The Soviet Navy records 1 submarine loss during the month that is not listed by day:

S-54 Northern Fleet off coast of Norway (mined off Norwegian coast) (Mike Yared)

TUNISIA: Cap Serrat is occupied by the British.

ITALY: Sardinia: A large USAAF bombing force attacks the Axis air base and transit port of Cagliari.

CHINA: The US opens training centres for Chinese infantrymen.

NEW GUINEA: US infantrymen under Colonel Archibald MacKechnie land at the mouth of the Waria river.

PACIFIC: Japanese aircraft raid the Russell Islands.

U.S.A.: Rogers and Hammerstein's musical Oklahoma opens on Broadway. (Michael Ballard)

Washington: The US High Command orders the invasion of Attu, in the Aleutian Islands.

31 March 1944

March 31st, 1944 (FRIDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: 279 civilians were killed and 633 injured in air raids this month.

Bomber Command is suffering losses which it cannot sustain. Germany is littered with the burnt-out carcasses of Lancasters shot down by German night fighters in the "Battle of Berlin", and there is no doubt that the Luftwaffe has won the battle. The last raid on Berlin was a week ago, when 72 out of 811 aircraft were lost, and no more are planned in the immediate future. Since 18 November last year, 1,117 bombers and their crews have been lost over Berlin and other targets. So terrible have the losses been that even the eager young men of the RAF's elite aircrews, many of them still under 20, have occasionally baulked. Many have been shot down on their first operation. The rest have just a 50-50 chance of completing a "tour" of 30 operations.

Slapton Sands, Devon: A full-scale investigation is to be launched next week in a bid to find out just what went wrong when the Amercan VII Corps, under Major-General J Lawton Collins, staged an invasion exercise - Operation Beaver - at Slapton Sands, near Dartmouth in Devon. The Sands, chosen because they are similar to a possible landing area in France, were to be captured by men coming ashore from landing craft after airborne troops had secured the flanks. Live ammunition was used, and a naval bombardment. But co-ordination between the units quickly broke down. "It was utter confusion," one man said.

GERMANY: British forces last night suffered a disaster similar to the Light Brigade's destruction at Balaklava, when 545 aircrew of Bomber Command died in a single raid. The target was Nuremburg, a round trip of 1,500 miles and eight hours for those who came back. The route was direct and predictably, in bright moonlight, onto the guns of the Luftwaffe night fighters all the way from Aachen to the target. Some defenders dropped flares above the 795-strong air convoy to illuminate the bombers even more.

In all, 95 planes were lost. 12 crashed as they landed, one a Halifax whose pilot, Cyril Barton, is to be recommended for a posthumous VC sacrificing his life to avoid miners' cottages.

Another 59 aircraft suffered heavy damage. The precentage loss was 20.8% of men and 11.9% of machines. The Germans lost 19 airmen (a favourable ratio of one to 28) plus 69 civilians and 59 slave workers. Although 256 buildings were hit and thousands of people have been made homeless, photo-reconnaissance suggests that Germany's war industry is unaffected.

Despite inflicting heavy losses on the RAF, the Germans are increasingly concerned about the effect of Allied raids on the civil population.

A secret report on the domestic situation by the SD (Security Service of the SS) says that in Berlin, for example, people are living "in fear", especially of daylight raids. Berlin has been that target of 16 heavy raids in recent months - 11 this year alone - which have killed 6,166 and made 1.5 million homeless. The Nazis are putting greater pressure on parents to send their children to rural child evacuation camps from areas at risk.

HUNGARY: All Jews are ordered to wear yellow stars for visual identification purposes.

ARCTIC OCEAN: Convoy JW-58 has triumphed in the face of one of the most powerful combined attacks of the war by German planes and submarines. The Allies were prepared for trouble and had provided the biggest-ever Arctic escort, comprising two aircraft carriers, five sloops, 20 destroyers, five corvettes and a cruiser. British aircraft shot down six German planes and sank another three U-boats, with the anti-submarine ace Captain F J "Johnnie" Walker leading the sloops from the bridge of HMS STARLING. Not a single merchant ship was lost.

PACIFIC: US Naval TF 58, the fast carriers of the 5th Fleet, attack Palau.
Admiral Mineichi Koga, Commander in Chief of the Imperial Japanese Combined Fleet is killed in an air crash. Due to political differences, his successor will not be named immediately.

U.S.A.: During WW II, the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) produced numerous documents, most commonly known are the Intelligence Bulletins. The Military Intelligence Special Series continues with "Company Officer's Handbook of the German Army." (William L. Howard)

Patrol Escort Vessel USS CASPER is commissioned with Lieutenant Commander F. J. Scheiber, USCG, in command; and reported to the Western Sea Frontier. (Henry Sirotin)

31 March 1945

March 31st, 1945 (SATURDAY)

GERMANY: Eisenhower broadcasts to the German armed forces, demanding their surrender.

De Tassigny's French First Army crosses the Rhine near Speyer.

Allied HQ: The Allies are poised for the final attack on Germany. Armies are moving round the Ruhr to link up between Munster and Paderborn; Montgomery's 21st Army Group is heading for Germany's Baltic ports; Patton is about to link up with US First Army at Kassel; the US Seventh Army is advancing on Heidelberg while the First French Army is swinging south to the Swiss border. Allied air supremacy is total; bombing raids have left roads, railways and canal in ruins, while sunken ships clog many harbours.

German LIII A.K., commanded by GL Fritz Bayerlein, with remnants of the 176 Inf. Div., Panzer Lehr Pz. Div., and 3 Pg. Div. attack the US 4 Arm. Div. near Paderborn. They are attempting to breakout of the "Ruhr pocket" and restore freedom of movement for Army Group B which is encircled there. (Jeff Christman)

PACIFIC OCEAN: Japanese submarine I-8 is sunk by US destroyers USS MORRISON (DD-560) and USS STOCKTON (DD-656) 65 miles southeast of Okinawa. (Marc James Small)(220, 221 and 222)

U.S.A.: "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams opens on Broadway. (Tony Giuliani)

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